ALAN PARKER ON SGT PEPPER

THIS WEEK SAW RELEASE OF A NEW FILM FROM DIRECTOR ALAN PARKER (WHO HAS PREVIOUSLY WORKED ON OFFICIAL DOCUMENTARIES FOR MONTY PYTHON AND STATUS QUO, AND CREATED OTHERS ON SID VICIOUS AND NANCY SPUNGEN, KISS AND THE CLASH). HIS NEW FILM – IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY – FOCUSES ON SGT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, THE ACKNOWLEDGED 1967 CLASSIC BY THE BEATLES.In this new interview with The Mouth Magazine, Alan talks about the making of the film, reflects on The Beatles and their body of work, and reveals one or two little known facts about SGT PEPPER…

YOUR PASSION FOR YOUR SUBJECT IS OBVIOUS TO ANYONE WHO’LL SEE THE FILM – BUT I THINK A GOOD WAY TO START WOULD BE BY ASKING WHETHER YOU’RE A ‘CARD-CARRYING’ FAN OF THE BEATLES, AND WHERE THAT ACTUALLY BEGAN FOR YOU?I’m a huge fan of The Beatles, yeah… This dates me, but I was given a TDK C-90 cassette, a tape, by a friend when I was just nine years old. It had the RUBBER SOUL album on one side and REVOLVER on the other…

WHAT A GREAT PLACE TO START…
Yeah! Both me and my brother got into music early ‘cos Dad was a big music fan. We’d go to town on a Saturday morning to meet Mum with the food shopping and Dad’d take us to a record shop. He’d buy an album and both me and our kid would get two singles each. So it was this big thing to go meet up with Mum…

THE SECOND WAVE OF GETTING INTO MUSIC COMES WITH YOUR PEERS IN YOUR TEENAGE YEARS, PROBABLY… BUT PARENTS ARE OFTEN YOUR FIRST WAY IN AREN’T THEY?
They are, yeah. They are. Dad took us to our first gig as well. I was aged eight and my brother was seven. Front row of the balcony. That was Slade, with the Alex Harvey Band in support, would you believe?

THAT’S AS GOOD A FIRST GIG AS ANY!Yeah, it was amazing. So we were very encouraged on music – and The Beatles just started to fill my life. I’m quite a big guy now (six foot five and covered in tattoos ‘cos I’m also a rock fan), but oddly enough I was quite a slight little fellow. One of the teachers used to call me ‘the church mouse’ – ‘cos I never said a great deal and I also used to get bullied a lot. My Mum used to tell this story for years. When I first heard the RUBBER SOUL album, I remember walking in the room and I was crying. My Mum said “what on Earth are you crying about?”, and I said “I think John Lennon’s written a song about me”. That was NOWHERE MAN.

THE POWER OF MUSIC… TO FOSTER SUCH A STRONG AND PERSONAL RESPONSE…Absolutely. Only polarised further that Christmas when my father bought me my first vinyl copy of SGT PEPPER. We were born in Blackburn, Lancashire. So when it got to that line “I read the news today, oh boy / Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire” in A DAY IN THE LIFE… I was going to my Mum and Dad “Look, he’s trying to get a message to me”. Ha ha ha… It stemmed from that, anyway, and it’s gone on for the last forty-odd years.

WHENEVER I DISCUSS THE BEATLES WITH PEOPLE, THERE ARE THOSE WHO BELIEVE THEY WERE A TRULY GREAT DANCEHALL BAND WHO ‘LOST IT’ AROUND RUBBER SOUL… AND THERE ARE THOSE WHO THINK EVERYTHING UP TO SGT PEPPER WAS MERELY AN APPRENTICESHIP, AND THEY THEN CROSSED OVER INTO MASTERY…
I love all of it, personally. But if I’m picking out a particular period I would say between RUBBER SOUL and THE BEATLES [aka THE WHITE ALBUM]. That’s the era that I listen to the most. I love them and I love it all – but for me that middle period is when they were flawless.
IT’S RUBBER SOUL AND REVOLVER FOR ME, BECAUSE YOU CAN HEAR WHAT THEY’VE BEEN BUT YOU SENSE THERE’S THIS UNIVERSE OF POSSIBILITY AHEAD OF THEM…Absolutely. It’s exciting to hear. I always like George Harrison’s quote about RUBBER SOUL and REVOLVER. He says they’re ‘Volume One’ and ‘Volume Two’, you know? If you listen to the whole catalogue, he’s got a point there. RUBBER SOUL and REVOLVER are the only consecutive albums where it sounds like you could almost package them together as a double album. You couldn’t really put REVOLVER with SGT PEPPER, could you?

AT THIS POINT – 1966 / 67 – THE BAND HAD HAD ENOUGH OF TOURING AND WORKING IN THE STUDIO BECAME MUCH MORE IMPORTANT TO THEM. THE POSSIBILITIES ON OFFER, THE SPACE AND TIME TO EXPERIMENT. THAT OPPORTUNITY WAS SO CRUCIAL TO THE BEATLES’ DEVELOPMENT…
Yeah, it was. At the end of touring, and with John’s “Jesus Christ” remark, and what went on in Manilla and Japan and everything, really they felt like prisoners of the live stage world. They were knowing, between them, that they had to get rid of the A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, Fab Four, mop-tops. They’d got to go. There’s this quote, again, from George, along the lines of “We had to get rid of those personas very quickly or we’d have destroyed our central nervous systems”. So they became this studio-based group. This new film is actually the story of twelve months around that. You might think, from the outside looking in, “that must have been an easy year for them”… They’d been so busy for five years that you might think 1967 was a restful time for The Beatles. But it wasn’t. In ’67 you’ve got the ‘summer of love’, you’ve got the death of Brian Epstein, you’ve got The Beatles meeting the Maharishi, you’ve got John meeting Yoko Ono. All these various things – and on top of all those, you’ve got this massive album. So 1967, the supposed quiet year, was actually anything but quiet…

… INCREDIBLY EXCITING, THEN, TO WORK ON A FILM WHERE THE AMOUNT OF STUFF TO GO AT IS SO DENSE…
It’s funny. It was a bit like being offered the chance to direct STAR WARS number two without ever having to wonder about making STAR WARS number one. In our world Ron Howard made STAR WARS number one. He took The Beatles from Liverpool and Hamburg to John’s “Jesus Christ” remark. So I just picked up. I thought “We may as well be chapter two. We may as well start with the remark and then move forward fourteen months”. By the time this film ends the next logical step is THE WHITE ALBUM. Ron’s film being there was very helpful – it meant we could structure our storyline very well.

RON’S FILM WAS AN OFFICIAL BEATLES PRODUCT, BUT IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY IS NOT…
No, it’s not. If you asked me “Would you rather have been an official Beatles film, and been able to use PENNY LANE and STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER and all that?”, then the answer would be “Yes, of course”… But although we’re not an official film we did know we were going to get some very very good interviewees. We knew we could get to a few people who could tell us stories that hadn’t appeared before, on screen or in books. We knew we had access to a lot of archive material people won’t have seen before (because we ‘know where the bodies are buried’ – one of my main archivists has actually worked for The Beatles in an official capacity a few times). Had we been ‘in bed with’ The Beatles and Apple for this film, so to speak, some of the stories we found wouldn’t have made the movie. Had they been seen by Paul, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia in order to get to final cut they would probably have been vetoed. With no disrespect to Ron Howard or to Martin Scorsese (who made the George Harrison documentary) or to Michael Epstein who did the amazing LENNONYC film, they were doing things that they then had to give to the Headmaster, if you like… And one of the great things about IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY is that it doesn’t arrive trussed into an Apple-shaped strait-jacket.

I DO ALWAYS APPRECIATE THE OFFICIAL BEATLES PRODUCT – ANTHOLOGY AND WHATEVER OTHER DOCUMENTARIES – BUT THERE’S AN AWARENESS THAT EVERYTHING OFFICIAL IS SLIGHTLY SANITISED. THAT’S OKAY, FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW, BUT I PREFER THE LAYERS PEELED BACK. I CAN HANDLE THE BEATLES NOT BEING GODS…Yeah. There’s been this phenomenon with official Beatles films, especially over the last ten years or so, that everything has been scrubbed and polished that you can only see a shine, you can’t see the cracks. I loved Ron Howard’s film, don’t get me wrong. As a Beatles fan I thought it was great. But from the point of view of rare footage (which was very little that I could see) and storyline, I thought it was very much aimed at people who only owned the ‘Blue album’ and the ‘Red album’, shall we say.

I FELT THE SAME THING. EIGHT DAYS A WEEK IS FINE IN AND OF ITSELF, BUT IT WAS MADE FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ONLY HAVE ‘1’ OR THE ‘RED’ AND ‘BLUE’…
Exactly. I’d like to hope that my movie is for people who’ve actually got SGT PEPPER, and who know it. And also for those people who’ve got the white label, who’ve got the Japanese pressing, who’ve got the pink vinyl bootleg, who’ve got boxes of outtake bootlegs. I hope we’re giving that audience a fresh insight.

THE FILM FEATURES INTERVIEWS WITH PLENTY OF NOTABLE CHARACTERS – INCLUDING PETE BEST, WHICH THREW ME A BIT… BUT PETE HAS A FANTASTIC LITTLE STORY. LENNON’S MEDALS ON HIS SGT PEPPER COSTUME BELONGED TO PETE’S GRANDAD.It was burning a hole in my pocket to tell that story. I’d always known that story, actually, ‘cos Pete is a good mate of mine. But I didn’t know that other people didn’t know! I said to a few people “Did you know where John’s medals came from?” and most people said “I haven’t got a clue”. Those who thought they knew presumed the same – that he’d got them from some costumier or something like that. One of those medal shops in Cecil Court in London or somewhere. They were actually Pete’s Grandad’s, from what they call The First Conflict in India. I did this two hour long interview with Pete about his entire existence in The Beatles – from meeting George in 1959 to having tracks on ANTHOLOGY in 1995. That’s one of the DVD / Blu Ray extras on IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY, ‘cos it’s such a good interview, though we’ve cut it down to 90 minutes. It’s Pete and Alan meeting for a coffee somewhere and having a chat about Pete’s life. I enjoyed the interviews, telling these new stories. I love the Barbara O’Donnell story (Brian’s secretary) about George bringing all the handwritten lyrics in to get typed up – and then, after she’d done each one, putting them in the bin. Imagine, in Sotheby’s circa 2017 prices, how many millions of pounds she threw in that bin! I even love the little things. I love the Jenny Boyd line about when they left India, and the Maharishi said to John “Why are you leaving?” – and John said “If you’re so fucking cosmic you should know”… Ha ha ha…

ONE STORY OF SOME NOTE IS FROM MUSIC BUSINESS IMPRESARIO SIMON NAPIER BELL. IT’S A BIT OF A SHOCK, ACTUALLY – DEFINITELY NOT SUGAR-COATED…
Yeah. Simon Napier Bell being, let’s say, on the fringe of being involved with the death of Brian Epstein. I knew nobody else really knew – but I knew the story was definitely there to be told, ‘cos some friends of mine had met Simon for dinner a number of years ago and he’d told them then. I thought “If I can get these people to tell these stories and details on camera then I’ve won”. As long as they could tell us stories that they know happened – ‘cos they were there and they lived through – and as long as we could find plenty of good archive, then the film was going to be good. They’re not regular Beatles documentary stories – they’re not the ones we’re normally given on a spoon as ‘The Beatles Story’…

DID YOU LEAVE MUCH OF YOUR BEATLES STORY OUT?The only thing we did do, really, that isn’t there now is that we went a bit further. There was a big section towards the end of the film about the MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR. We’d found some rare footage that had been shot on Super-8, and we managed to do a really good deal on it. But when we actually sat down to watch the end section, I just made a directorial decision and said “Let’s get rid”. We felt that stuff took something away from the way the rest of the ending worked. Funnily enough, I was out for a drink with a friend of mine one night, and he’d found this app on his phone. Let’s say you put into it, for instance, ‘Neil Armstrong / moon landing’ and then you scroll down and you put “death of Princess Diana”, it comes back at you with ’36, 941 days’ or whatever it is. So I went home and put in ‘SGT PEPPER released’ and the I put in ‘THE WHITE ALBUM’… It came up 528 days. That was when I thought “I’ve got the end of my film”…

WHEN YOU LOOK BACK AT THE ENTIRE LIFESPAN OF THE BAND, AND HOW MUCH EXPERIENCE THERE WAS FOR THEM IN THAT RELATIVELY SHORT SPACE OF TIME, IT’S MIND-BOGGLING. INCREDIBLY, TOO – SO MUCH RECORDED OUTPUT IN JUST SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS…
It’s incredible, as you say…

AMONGST ALL THAT IS, OF COURSE, SGT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND. THE ALBUM WAS OFFICIALLY RELEASED ON 1ST JUNE 1967, BUT…Yeah! But! Someone asked me “Hang on, why did your film come out on May 26th and why have Apple put out the new box set on May 26th, when SGT PEPPER was actually released on 1st June?” – and the answer’s interesting. I know this ‘cos I heard it from the mouth of their (now deceased) Press Officer, Tony Barrow… May 26th 1967 there was a BBC broadcast, Kenny Everett interviewing three of The Beatles (only three ‘cos George was in India), and unprecedentedly he played every single track off the album. I don’t think you could do that now ‘cos someone would find a way to record it and make a file of it share it on the internet straight away. You’d sell no records. But in ’67 Kenny did this radio special and he played every track (plus the double-sided single STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER / PENNY LANE). Some of the record stores had, by that date, already got their stock of SGT PEPPER – and they presumed that if the BBC were doing this special, they must be able to sell the record! So some of the larger record stores on Oxford Street and in the West End of London actually started selling the record at lunchtime on Saturday 26th May. Amazing, really. Again, another one of those interesting little stories. So that’s where our film’s release date – and the new Apple box set’s release date – actually came from.

SGT PEPPER IS PROBABLY THE BAND’S MOST FAMOUS ALBUM BUT I THINK FAMILIARITY HAS SOFTENED THE PUBLIC’S CRITICAL EAR, IN SOME WAYS. THERE’S A BIT OF FILLER IN THERE – AND BOTH RUBBER SOUL AND REVOLVER ARE FAR MORE EXCITING SETS OF SONGS… HAVING SAID ALL THAT, IT WORKS AS A WHOLE. WHEN I LISTENED TO IT RIGHT BEFORE THIS CALL, IT DID SOUND FRESH AND EXCITING AND IT HAD A SENSE OF MASTERY OVER ITS INVENTION. AS A POP CULTURAL ARTEFACT, IT’S ALMOST CERTAINLY PEERLESS…
I think it’s all that and more, to be honest. I mean, just the cover alone, for a start, will last forever won’t it? I think it’s Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks) who says this in IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY… When you got SGT PEPPER, you came home on the top deck of the bus with your Mum or your Dad or your Uncle or whoever you were with, and you got it out the bag and you just sat looking at it – “Who the hell are all these people, and why are they here?”

I REMEMBER BEING SMALL – THREE, MAYBE FOUR – AND SEEING DAD’S COPY OF SGT PEPPER AND WONDERING WHO THEY ALL WERE, BUT ALSO JUST HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE IN THE GROUP! IT WAS UNFATHOMABLE.
Absolutely. Over the years there’ve been lots of arguments about exactly why each person on the sleeve is there. I liked, in our film, the journalist and PR Bill Harry. He went into the whole history of the sleeve. He was very useful in that respect ‘cos he knew a lot of stories…

I THINK IT’S DEFINITELY THEIR MOST ICONIC SLEEVE – AND IT’S DEFINITELY THEIR MOST ENDURING ALBUM – BUT I ACTUALLY DON’T THINK IT’S THEIR BEST. WHAT DO YOU THINK?I’ll answer that quite subjectively! Right now, because SGT PEPPER has been such a huge chunk of my life for the last nine or ten months, yes it is. I’m playing it constantly. It could be that you ask me the same question in three weeks and I say RUBBER SOUL. And I know I’m ‘due’ a THE WHITE ALBUM period, ‘cos me and my producer have been talking about THE WHITE ALBUM a lot recently. There’s a rumour afloat that Giles Martin is going to be doing a six disc fiftieth anniversary box set, along the lines of this new PEPPER one, for next September. So I’m thinking maybe I need to get out all my THE WHITE ALBUM bootlegs – the acoustic demos from George’s house, the Kinfauns demos, the Doll’s House stuff. The demos from way back when THE WHITE ALBUM was still called A DOLL’S HOUSE. I’m gonna listen to all of that stuff – ‘cos I really do feel like I’ve neglected THE WHITE ALBUM, basically, while I’ve been immersed in all this PEPPER stuff…

IF GILES DOES PUT TOGETHER THAT BOX SET, MAYBE YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR THE WHITE ALBUM FILM?
Funnily enough we’ve been asked by a few people whether that’s on the cards, and we’ve been approached by two distributors to do it. Unfortunately there’s not anywhere near as much archive that could be licensed for THE WHITE ALBUM.

WHY IS THAT?
By the time The Beatles formed Apple, they had all ‘third party clearances’ demolished. Even if we did ‘get in bed with’ The Beatles to do a film on THE WHITE ALBUM, my archivist (the guy who’s worked in an official capacity with them) tells me they just don’t have enough stuff to cover ninety minutes. So, we could get lots of ‘talking heads’ and tell the story quite easily, but there’s very little footage. We couldn’t illustrate it with much other than still photographs. I mean, it’d be a hell of a record to do a film about. Just the story of the sleeve alone. The original cover was going to be The White Cliffs of Dover with The Beatles heads carved in! There is some rough early artwork you can find online if you want to. It was Peter Blake, anyway, who… Well, Paul went to Peter and asked him if he’d do another album cover for The Beatles, and Peter said “No. How the hell could I, or you, follow SGT PEPPER?” – and he suggested releasing it in a plain white sleeve. Put all the packaging inside, so no-one can see anything on the outside. Put your name on in small text, and put a number on so that people think it’s a limited edition. The Beatles were getting more into their art galleries and stuff, so it suited that ‘statement’ thing, in a way.

IN ITS OWN, DIFFERENT, WAY THE WHITE ALBUM COVER IS AS MUCH OF A CLASSIC AS PEPPER. IT’S AS EFFECTIVE IN PROVOKING A REACTION…
It is, yeah. It certainly is. I would love to see a documentary done on THE WHITE ALBUM – but I think the next one where there’s lots of footage, news footage and so on, would be around LET IT BE and ABBEY ROAD. They’d started doing interviews again ‘cos they were about to split, so there’s quite a lot of archive there which isn’t owned by Apple so it has ‘third party clearance’ on it and could be licensed. So we could probably do something around that period of The Beatles – but who would we get for interviews outside of the people we’ve already tracked down? I think of all those wonderful stories I used to hear from Derek Taylor in the canteen, when I used to work for EMI many years ago… God, I would have loved to interview Derek. All those stories… I never got tired of his stories about The Beatles. Sadly, time marches on and there’s so many people who are no longer with us. But at least the music is…